The Rite

"The Rite" is about priests who perform exorcisms - they wave crucifixes and utter prayers over the sweaty, contorted figures of the demon-possessed - but it isn't "The Exorcist." It doesn't intend to be.

This is clear from the movie's very first exorcism, when Anthony Hopkins, playing a veteran of the trade named Father Lucas, attempts to coax an intractable demon from a pregnant 16-year-old (Marta Gastini). As skeptical deacon Michael (Colin O'Donoghue) stands by, the burly old exorcist spits out the relevant Latin. The girl scratches viciously at her scalp. Her eyes roll back into her head. Then Father Lucas' cell phone goes off.

"I can't talk now. I'm in the middle of something," he whispers into the phone, slightly understating the situation. When the session wraps up (with the demon still intact), the bewildered deacon expresses some surprise. Quips Father Lucas: "Well, what did you expect? Spinning heads? Pea soup?"

It's a cute reference to William Friedkin's horror classic, spoken with all the wit and precision of Hopkins at his best. He's in full flight here, giving a delicious tour de force as the unorthodox Jesuit exorcist who takes a doubtful young man under his wing and prods him to believe. Michael just finished four years of seminary, but he's not sure he wants to be a priest.

An intuitive superior (Toby Jones) sends Michael to Rome for a two-month course in exorcism, or "spiritual liberation," thinking a little on-hands exposure to evil might sate the boy's hunger for proof. This is the point where you think: "Here it comes. The onslaught of devil-movie cliches." Yet the onslaught never arrives. Sure, there are cliches, but the film avoids the schlockier pitfalls of outright "Exorcist" wannabes.

The movie treats the entire thing matter-of-factly, patiently, with sober-minded purpose: both faith and skepticism get some respect, a shocker in the horror oeuvre these days. For all the hellfire histrionics and well-timed jump scares, there is actual, admirable intellect behind "The Rite" - in part because Michael Petroni's script was "suggested" by a nonfiction book of the same name (by Matt Baglio), in part because Mikael Håfström's direction has the plain-dealing dramatic force of a man at ease confronting demons.